2007-07-19 A Fascinating Journey Into Horsemanship

This book describes Kathleen Lindley's transition from a successful Hunter-Jumper rider ( or Showjumper as we British have it ) to a student of top trainer, clinician and author Mark Rashid touring around the world as a clinic assistant with him. It is fascinating as a reader to follow her journey into understanding how horses think, how hard they try to get things right for us and what we can do to get things right for them.

The accounts of the horses they worked with and the approaches that helped them build relationships between those horses and their riders make for very interesting reading in themselves but they also serve to draw out and show the common threads that we need to bring together if we want to get things right between ourselves and our own horses. The book discusses the importance of simplicity and it practices what it preaches, illustrating simple ideas that are at the heart of horsemanship and getting the best from our horses by finding the best in ourselves. It's also very well written and interspersed with little snapshots of life on the road.

Having read most of Mark Rashid's books it also gave a very different angle on how he works- here you get a student's-eye-view of what an excellent trainer he is, both for horses and people.

I found this it helped me consolidate a lot of ideas I was having about what I need to be doing with my own horse and also inspired me and gave me confidence that I could get things right. In fact I will go so far as to say that it is one of the best books on horsemanship I have ever read and that anyone who keeps or rides horses- regardless of discipline, experience or background- would find something of value in it.